


A Nook of Their Own, A Town to Share

by PuppyPoison



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Eventual Sex, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-30
Updated: 2017-01-30
Packaged: 2018-09-20 21:15:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9516572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PuppyPoison/pseuds/PuppyPoison
Summary: Long car rides aren’t the most exciting thing in the world. For Noctis, the best way to pass the time in the backseat of the Regalia is with video games. He’s always been the type to get easily hooked, but when he picks up Animal Crossing: New Leaf, he gets addicted to the point of chaos. Tired of being neglected, Prompto decides that the only way to bring Noctis back to the real world is for Prompto to dive into the game world.





	

**Author's Note:**

> If Cup Noodles and American Express exist in the FFXV universe, I'm pretty sure Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft are all present as well. 
> 
> There aren't any spoilers in this and it's set prior to the events of Altissia. Contains eventual sexual content.

Prompto hadn't thought anything beyond a simple shopping trip when Noctis urged the bus to make a stop at GameStop before going off onto the next tomb site. Ignis and Noctis had a particularly affinity for playing video games, and Gladio was even worse when it came to gaming. He enjoyed games too, to an extent. He loved King’s Knight and enjoyed shooting games, big fat gun shows like Call of Duty and Halo. What he could never wrap his head around was Noctis's affection for what he liked to call "girl games."

First, there had been the Nintendogs. It was a dopey little video game--essentially, you did nothing except throw made-up tennis balls and clean up invisible dog shit. It was, in Prompto's opinion, a lot less of a video game and a lot more of a chore. There was no feasible reason that he could imagine to justify the fun time of scraping up canine feces. He did enough of that in real life. He didn't need a game to increase the frequency. Maybe it was due to Noctis missing Umbra, but he still thought it was somewhat excessive.

Then, there was Cooking Mama. Do not get Prompto started on Cooking Mama. He absolutely hated it. He hated the awkward narration, he hated the shrill voice of the main character. For weeks, as he slept beneath Noctis's bunk, he heard the Cooking Mama in his dreams. She said "Good Job!" endlessly, and whenever Noctis happened to burn something in his rounds of playing (which was often), Prompto would have to sleep through the shrieks of an angry, pre-recorded woman.

For weeks, Prompto had nightmares about animated fried delicacies, and constantly woke up in a cold sweat with the smell of chicken still fresh in his nostrils. Whenever Ignis cooked for them, Prompto felt his stomach turn as the ghost of Cooking Mama’s voice pierced his memory. Even the game could not replicate accurately what Prompto was experiencing. He tried sleeping with headphones in, but that didn’t even come close. He could still hear Noctis tapping away on his DS, volume cranked at two in the morning. Ignis and Gladio were able to sleep through it, but Prompto was never anything but haunted by the taps, the music, and the sound effects.

Whether it was fortunate or unfortunate, the Cooking Mama craze lasted only two months. After that, Noctis had successfully beaten all of the incarnations of the game--the original, the sequels, the spin offs--and when he announced this to the rest of his group, Prompto was finally able to look up from his cup of coffee and blearily sigh in relief. That relief did not last for long, though, because as coincidence would dictate, they were making a pit stop in another very populated town today. Populated towns always, without failure, brought with them video game stores.

"I just wish that they would release Cooking Mama Fifteen already," Noctis sighed, staring at the wall of games. “It’s been…such a long time coming, so they have to release it soon. They will, I just know it. " 

Prompto held back a groan and started walking towards the Xbox One section of the store. He had never gotten the appeal of the Nintendo DS, 3DS, whatever. For one, it was mostly girl games and Pokemon, stuff that just plain couldn't hold Prompto's attention. And for two, the screen was just too damn small. Prompto snapped at anyone who tried to feed him the argument that "it was just the right size for travel.” He was not a man who sat happily with tiny little screens. When Noctis was still at the castle, Prompto had always claimed the big screen TV the prince was fortunate to have in his room, while Noctis still glued himself to his tiny DS screen no matter what was on the TV.

"Prompto! Come back over here!" Noctis yelled. "I need help!"

"Ask Ignis!" Prompto yelled back, ducking behind a rack of used controllers before Noctis could think of running after him. He held his breath, then thankfully heard Noctis called for Ignis instead. Prompto sighed in relief as he shoved his hands in his vest pockets, gazing up at the rack of used games. He wasn't one to pay full price. He wasn't the type, not when he grew up the way he did.

It was hard to focus on picking out a new game for himself when the rest of his friends were impeding on his concentration with their bickering, though. In fact, it was nearly impossible.

"Noct, why don't you try out Ace Attorney? I’ve been playing it quite a bit, I think you may enjoy it.” Ignis said.

"I don't want to play a law game! If I wanted to do that, I would've gone to law school! And I--"

"Yes, Noct, I know. I’m well aware of your..disinterest in higher education. Well, what about this? Imagine Artist?"

“Have you seen my drawings, Ignis? You know that’s not me.” Noctis snapped. He hadn’t forgiven Ignis for the “constructive criticism” Ignis had once given him.

”Alright, alright. Perhaps…Imagine Babysitter?"

Prompto almost snorted, but kept quiet. This was not a conversation he wanted to be dragged into. 

"Do I look like I babysit?"

"Noctis, it's simply a game, you don't--"

"Do I?" Noctis pressed, voice dropping into a snarl.

"Fine, fine….well, how about….er….Animal Crossing, New Leaf?” Ignis said, hesitantly.

“…what?" Noctis said, huffing.

"Animal Crossing. It's for the 3DS, if you were interested in exploiting the graphics on that new system of yours. You have your own little town, see? This looks like a fun game." Ignis sounded more confident now, and Prompto peeked from around the rack to see him turning a game case over in his hands. It was brightly colored, Prompto noted, but at least it wasn't pink.

"Is it like the Sims?" Noctis asked, sounding perkier.

Prompto cringed. He didn't even want to remember Noctis's eight-month Sims phase. It had been a bad time for everyone in the castle. 

"No, not quite....but you ought to give it a try. I mean, really Noct, it doesn't hurt just just give it a whirl."

Noctis sighed. "I guess I will."

Prompto silently put his face in his hands. Here we go again, he thought

\---------

On the bright side, the new game didn't boast tinny music or screeching voice acting. Contrary to Cooking Mama, Animal Crossing had what Prompto would almost call soothing music. The voices of the characters were moderate, mumbling gibberish, and even though Noctis was playing the game late into the night, Prompto was able to move back under his own bunk and successfully fall asleep. It was Noctis's game that was putting him to sleep, and, just as things had been before, it was Noctis's snores waking Prompto up in the morning.

That was similar to how things had been before, but nothing else was. Noctis was certainly the type to get into video games once he got them, but he had never sunk into a game this badly before. Noctis was neglecting food, silent in the backseat of the Regalia, and pushed through battles faster than ever before, motivated to get them over with so he could return to the game. While the other three were taking advantage of the motel they stayed at one night, watching movies as a rare treat, Noctis still just tucked himself up all alone.

It seemed like Noctis was just vanishing. Out of sight, out of mind, sucked inside a video game world where no one could reach him. He barely talked when the game was out of his hands, and didn’t talk at all when he was playing it. 

“Gotta get back to work,” he’d mumble after slaying a daemon, rushing over to hop into the Regalia and flip his DS open once more.

Before this, though, Noctis hadn't disappeared so much. When everyone else broke off and retired to their respective tents or beds, Noctis had tended to stay beside Prompto, wherever Prompto decided to be at the time. He may have been working on a stupid sort of Cooking Mama game, or something equally tacky and ridiculous, but at least he had been there. Noctis was Prompto's best friend for a reason. Maybe Noctis was always preoccupied, but at least present whenever Prompto wanted someone to make a quick joke at, or just someone to talk to, period. Before Noctis had always been there to look over and grin at, but now Noctis wouldn't even look up from his game. More and more, he was glued to a sleeping bag or huddled under a blanket. He was just gone.

Prompto curled up on the couch of tonight’s motel suite, alone while everyone else was out doing whatever they were doing. He had some shitty B-movie playing on the television, and was wrapped up tight in a blanket. It was pushing on their third month out on the road, he thought, but they were still so far from reaching their goal. They didn't stop. 

"We'll be doing this forever," Prompto mumbled to himself. Ignis and Gladio had gone out for coffee, having talked earlier about this town having some award winning coffee shop, but despite the temptation of a rare delicacy, Prompto felt the obligation to stick around the motel. Just in case Noctis came out and talked to him.

Prompto woke up maybe three hours later, surprised he had fallen asleep so easily. The TV had switched to some infomercial, and his throat felt thick. His eyes were crusty, and he shook himself enough out of sleep to figure out what was going on. He heard Ignis and Gladio talking, apparently back from their outing. But, of course, he didn't hear Noctis. He sighed, scratching at his head before he reached the double bed and laid down beside Noctis. Prompto didn't fall asleep as quickly as he thought he would. Instead, he lay awake listening to the faint music and the tapping of Noctis's DS stylus. It was the most they had hung out in a while.

\-----------

It was days later, but as always they were on the road in the Regalia. Noctis was beside Prompto, completely absorbed.

"Noct?" Prompto asked. Noctis did not respond.

"Hey, Noct?"

"Noct!" Prompto shouted, and that at least got Noctis to look up, confused and dropping his stylus for a moment.

"What, what's going on? Prompto, what's wrong?"

"You're fuckin' spaced out, man." Prompto grumbled at him. "You know I'm still here, huh? Are you still living on planet Earth?" he asked bitterly as he leaned across the seat.

"Oh, yeah Prompto. I've just been busy." Noctis said, smiling weakly at him. "There's a lot to do in this game, you know?"

Prompto raised an eyebrow at him, sighing and settling back in his seat. "What do you even do in it?"

Noctis's face lit up. "Well, there's fishing! Fishing is the best way to pay off your mortgage, and then bug catching, too....um, you have to like, you donate them to the museum, too. The fish. And the bugs. Oh, not to mention I've been digging up fossils for the museum. Hold on, lemme...I'll show you my museum." Noctis grabbed for his DS, holding it close to his face as he mashed on the buttons. Prompto looked out at the landscape zipping by them while he waited, and then Noctis was shoving the DS into Prompto's face.

"See? See, it's here, look....oh, and that's me by the way. I designed my own outfit, you can do that if you go to the seamstress...you draw it, isn't that cool? But okay, look inside this museum room. I've got about a third of the whole museum full...and look at, look at this dinosaur exhibit! Isn't that great?" Noctis babbled excitedly.

"Um...er...yeah, that's...great." Prompto said, staring skeptically at the pixelated bones on the screen. "But hey, Noct. You wanna maybe take a break from that, just…hang out with us later? We’ve been—”

"Can't, I'm busy."

"What?"

"I've still got a lot of mortgage to pay off, Prompto. I'm sorry, but...maybe some other time, okay?" Noctis said, attention already returned to his game.

"Oh." Prompto said. He waited for another response for Noctis, for some kind of acknowledgement, but Noctis just kept staring at his game. He looked over at Noctis every few minutes, waiting for him to notice him, but Noctis didn’t put the game down until hours later, when the car screeched to a halt and they leaped out to take down yet another daemon blocking their path. The greatest daemon in Prompto’s life now was that stupid, stupid DS.

\-------

A week or so later, with no improvement in Noctis, Prompto stomped off from the Regalia and the others and into town. Three bus stops later, he hoofed it over the rest of the way to the video game store. Once he was there, Prompto fished his credit card out of his pocket, handing it over to the cashier after he had picked up a brand new copy of Animal Crossing: New Leaf along with Prompto's very own new Nintendo 3DS. It was bright, vivid magenta. Prompto cringed a little at this, but all of the other colors were sold out, and Prompto needed this. 

He hated to admit that he needed Noctis's attention so badly, and also hated the fact that he was incapable of functioning without it. It was melodramatic, and he recognized that, but he always, always fought better when Noctis was teasing him in the car, or cracking jokes with him as they sliced and shot through daemons. Lately, he was missing shots and tripping over rocks because he was too caught up in trying to get Noctis's attention, and made so miserable by the fact that Noctis walking past him now and then was as close to Prompto as Noctis got these days.

The feelings Prompto had for Noctis were something he tended to ignore. He could be content with their friendship, he told himself. As long as Noctis was his friend, as long as Noctis kept shooting him smiles here and there and sometimes letting Prompto fall asleep on his shoulder, Prompto could deal with the fact that he wasn't being taken back to Noctis's bed to sleep in an embrace—or not sleep at all, Prompto sometimes thought as he guiltily daydreamed of…more explicit interactions with the prince. But touching Noctis was the last of Prompto's concerns at this point. Right now, right now all Prompto wanted was for Noctis to talk to him. To notice him, just for more than a minute.

Prompto got back a little bit later, and wound up not having enough time to start playing the game at all. He was rushed into the car, Ignis snapping at him for dawdling and refusing to let Prompto or Noctis have any game systems out as he lectured them on what was to come for their next quest. Noctis seemed off his game as they slashed down the daemons blocking the road that night, enough to make Gladio bark at him and even have to leap in to block a claw from ripping through him. Noctis focused more after that, but he still rushed through the fight as usual. 

To no one's surprise, Noctis pushed past everyone once they reached their campsite and crawled into the tent at once. At this point, even Ignis was sighing over him. 

"He told me he has an event in the game tonight. It's a holiday, or something." Ignis explained, looking in the direction of Noctis’s tent as he tossed vegetables in his frying pan.

"A holiday?" Prompto asked, halfheartedly wiping the sweat off of his face. He wished they were at a hotel with a shower tonight rather than being stuck roughing it. Ignis sighed again.

"I wouldn't ask."

Prompto didn't ask, and he was too downtrodden to bother pulling out the game when he got inside the tent himself. He chose the opposite tent than the one Noctis had claimed, opting to sleep with Gladio (smelly as he was) rather than deal with that stupid game. The last thing he wanted to hear was that soft, gentle music streaming nonstop from Noctis's bunk. Not tonight.

\---------

Prompto picked the game up the next day. They were at a hotel that night, and at least in the open space of the hotel room, Noctis wasn’t able to zip up the tent and seclude himself. 

Noctis was still mentally secluded, of course. Prompto turned on the television, and Noctis didn't even look up. After about an hour of flipping channels aimlessly, and about half an hour of shitty reality television, Prompto took a deep breath and reached in his backpack for his own DS. Noctis and Prompto were sitting on opposite beds, but Prompto made sure to crank the volume on his system. Sure enough, Noctis looked up as soon as he heard the title screen theme of Animal Crossing on a DS besides his own.

"Prompto?" Noctis asked, acknowledging him for the first time in what felt like weeks.

"Yeah?" Prompto asked, trying to look nonchalant as he clicked through the character selection to pick his own little person. Slacking on individuality, his character was named Prompto as well, wearing a skull shirt and living in the town of “Kickass.” 

"Did you get Animal Crossing?" 

"Oh, yeah. I'm not that far in it yet, but--"

"You have to get on Wi-Fi with me. Now."

Prompto beamed inside, his plan going as he had intended it. He had read up on the Wi-Fi capabilities of the game, and this looked as though it would be the only way for him to get to Noctis. If Noctis wouldn't hang out with anyone outside of the game, then Prompto had every intention of going in the game if it meant seeing Noctis.

"Okay, how do I--"

But before Prompto could finish his sentence, Noctis was yanking Prompto's DS out of his hands, placing both of the systems before him and letting the excitement, the emotion drain from his face as he stared at the two screens. Moving his fingers back and forth between both, Noctis controlled the games simultaneously. Prompto stared open mouthed at first, but his confusion soon turned to disappointment as he called Noctis's name and was ignored. Prompto's posture slackened, and he wound up with his head still in his hands forty-five minutes later when Noctis finally handed him his DS back and returned to his own seat. Prompto took his game back, frowning.

"Noctis, what--"

"Oh, I got fruit from your town. And then I had you visit me, to unlock the shop expansion that I needed. Thanks for getting the game, Prompto. I was almost thinking of getting myself another system, but...now I don't have to!" Noctis said, pleased with himself as he smiled stupidly at Prompto. Prompto didn't smile back.

"Oh. Um. Okay." Prompto said, taking his system back from Noctis and sliding the switch to turn it off. He didn't bother to save. He put it back in his backpack, kicking his sneakers off and sliding under the covers. No one else was in the hotel at that point, so Prompto had the entirety of the cold double mattress to himself. He blinked at the television a little longer, but he was asleep before the others returned, and long before Noctis switched his game off and went to sleep himself.

As it always did, the music of the game lulled Prompto to sleep. And Noctis didn't notice at all the few times Prompto muttered Noctis's name in his sleep.

\-------

Prompto did wind up playing the game by himself after that. It was fun, he had to admit. He didn't pick up the addiction that Noctis did, but he did start playing for a couple hours or so a day. It was a good game for when nothing else was going on. Seeing as Noctis was more out of reach than anything else lately, Prompto never had much going on anymore. Prompto was making payments on his house, and he steered his dopey-eyed character on errands around his town with as much enthusiasm as he could manage. He supposed it was okay. It wasn't a bad game. He just wished it hadn't taken Noctis away like it had.

He was playing it by the fireside at their camp one night, staying out late as the screen glowed in the darkness. After a while, Noctis came and flopped into a camper chair beside him. Prompto jolted up in surprise. Of course Noctis still had his DS in hand, but he was out of his tent and among the living. Noctis had even taken the time to look up from his DS and talk to him.

"Hey, Prompto!"

"Uh, yeah?"

"Let's go on Wi-Fi again. On Animal Crossing, we should play together. We didn't really get a chance to last time...here, here pull up your thing." Noctis urged.

Prompto obliged. It was your fault we didn't do anything last time, Prompto thought begrudgingly. He switched his DS on, clicking impatiently through the opening scenes. This time, Noctis didn't snatch it from it, instead choosing to wait patiently, staring at Prompto with an almost dopey expression. Prompto frowned at the screen.

"Um, how do I actually--" Prompto started, holding out his DS somewhat helplessly to Noctis.

"Oh, here you go." Noctis sniffled, taking the DS from Prompto and making some necessary clicks. He sounded like he was coming down with a cold, and Prompto almost wondered if Noctis had been staying up so late playing his game that he was wearing himself down. There had never been a night where Prompto heard Noctis shut his game off before he himself fell asleep. 

When Noctis returned the DS to him, Prompto was standing in a town that looked significantly different from his own. Shockingly different, even. Whereas Prompto's town had a ground covered in the default grass, Prompto realized that Noctis had covered the ground in his game with what appeared to be tiles similar to those in his inventory, the ones that held patterns from the dressmaker's shop. Prompto hadn't even known that was possible. Awestruck, he maneuvered his character across the literal yellow brick road that Noctis had laid down to run throughout the town. The default grass remained in many areas, but usually he couldn't see it for all of the flowers Noctis had planted. There were trees everywhere, and Prompto noticed that there were trees bearing every different type of fruit. Prompto was surprised, again--in his town, only one sort of fruit was available. He thought that was a standard restriction in all games.

"Noct, how--"

"Oh, um...well, I went online and looked up some forums...and I, um...well, I traded friend codes with people. So I could visit them on the global Wi-Fi and trade fruit with them." Noctis said sheepishly.

"Wh--why couldn't you just ask me?" Prompto asked, sounding angrier and more interrogative than he had attended.

"Well...there are a lot of different kinds of fruit. You could only give me one, and I--"

"Yeah, yeah, you wanted them all." Prompto grumbled. Prompto wanted to add "like everything else," but he couldn't come up with anything logical for that to reference. Noctis wasn't the type to hook up with anyone, not in all the years he’d known Noctis, nor was he the type to spend frivolously despite the royal bank account he’d enjoyed all his life. He had heard Ignis yelling at Noctis the other day to "buy some new blasted underwear!”, but Noctis always preferred to sit down rather than shop. 

Noctis was quiet for a while, and Prompto continued to wander around Noctis's town. The in-game shop was a mall by now, and Prompto went inside to look at everything in it. There were far more things available than in his own game. He walked past villager after villager, and all of them seemed elated. It must be that Noctis spoke to them every day, or something. All of the animal characters in his game were assholes. Prompto found the post office, the beach, and several villagers' houses, yet he could not locate Noctis's house. He could feel Noctis breathing over his shoulder, and it was really starting to irritate him. He was on the verge of snapping at Noctis when he looked down at his screen to notice that another small, animated person had come up beside his own character. He watched as it pulled a stupid face at him. Prompto supposed it was supposed to elicit happiness. This didn't surprise him, though, he had seen the faces in the game before. He wasn't surprised until a small blue speech bubble popped up on his screen, though.

Prompto!

Prompto was taken aback. He had always thought that player characters in the game couldn't speak, and hadn't thought that there might be an exception in player to player communication. He thought that Nintendo would be too paranoid about that, given the Wi-Fi capabilities. If he were Nintendo, he would certainly want to avoid any potential lawsuits over kiddie video game pedophilia sexting. Not that it would only be used for sexting. Certainly, Noctis wouldn't use it for sexting. Prompto's stomach turned over at the thought of Noctis sending him an illicit text message, and the urge to fling his game across the room overtook him. But, as usual, he held himself back.

Noctis! Prompto typed back. He had almost typed a "Noct!" like he used to in their text messages, but it had been too long for Prompto to feel comfortable using it. It had only been a couple weeks, but when it came to Noctis and Prompto, that was definitely a long time. They hadn't been texting as much, hadn't been talking as much. He knew it wouldn’t be a big deal, but Prompto still felt weird using a nickname.

follow me, Noctis's character beckoned. Prompto obliged, as always, and his character (dressed in a simple skull t-shirt) ran behind Noctis's character (dressed in a full-blown knight costume) until they came to a thick grove of trees. These were bare trees, with no fruit clinging to their branches. It was almost maze-like, and Prompto had to carefully tag behind Noctis in order to find his way. Once they made it through the trees, Prompto found Noctis's house. 

It was huge. Mansion like, almost. Not even an almost, it was a full-blown mansion. There was a mock "moat" surrounding it, made of the same tiles that made the golden brick road. Prompto wanted to kick himself when he realized he could've followed the road straight to Noctis's house. Noctis entered the house, and Prompto followed right behind. The inside was even grander than the outside, packed with perfectly matched furniture. "Sets," Prompto remembered them being called. Besides the exact wallpaper and flooring to go with the furniture, Noctis had also arranged all the furniture in a specific way. Prompto always dumped objects in his house haphazardly, but Noctis had organized his items perfectly. The interior was as luxurious as the castle at Insomnia had once been.

look around! Noctis's character prompted.

Prompto moved his character around to explore the house, walking through a living room, a "study," a kitchen, and two nicely furnished bedrooms. Noctis had even made a mock bathroom in one corner of the kitchen. Whereas Noctis had gone for making a hyperrealistic house, Prompto had just scattered things in his house haphazardly. He felt ashamed and embarrassed comparing his house to Noctis's. He just felt embarrassed, period. He felt embarrassed with how happy he was right now--how happy he was just to be getting this current scrap of Noctis's attention. Prompto let his character huff down onto a couch, although in game huffing did not work so well. His character happily swung his legs back and forth, and was soon joined by Noctis's character doing the same on the couch beside him. There was a healthy distance between their characters, but Prompto just now noticed that Noctis was almost too close to Prompto where they were in real life. Prompto could feel Noctis breathing--still. It was hot and heavy, almost on his shoulder, almost on the skin of his neck. Prompto rested his DS lower in his lap. He didn't want to embarrass himself any more.

Prompto!

what

do you like my house??????

Prompto could hear Noctis tapping away at the screen as he wrote out his phrases to Prompto, and it initially irritated him. That evaporated quickly, though. They were soon launched into an Animal Crossing conversation, with not only in-game speech bubbles, but emotive face icons as well. Prompto burst out laughing in real life. He did not hear the same from Noctis, though. He looked over his shoulder and Noctis was still just tapping into the game screen. Prompto looked down again.

lol!! 

Prompto's laughter disintegrated in seconds. It was too much to ask to fully separate Noctis from his game world. He lasted through a few more minutes of conversation, mostly faking it before he slammed his DS shut, breaking the connection. 

"Prompto!" Noctis sputtered, looking down at his game and back at Prompto again. "Prompto, why did you--"

"I have stuff to do." Prompto mumbled angrily before stomping off and zipping himself into his tent.

\---------------

That message shouldn't have bothered him as much as it did. It was simply "lol". There shouldn't be anything wrong with that. It was common slang, it had been common enough in their text messages. Prompto couldn't help thinking "when they used to text" in that train of thought. He shoved his DS into the most unreachable corner of his backpack pocket, angry enough to wish it into breaking. He hoped that someone would kick it, or knock it around the wrong way, or just do something. He didn't want to think about it. He didn't want to recognize that the game existed in his life. More than that, he didn't want to recognize the fact that it existed in Noctis's life. That it was Noctis's life now. There was nothing Noctis cared about except that game anymore, and it was all too apparent now. Noctis wouldn't even speak to him out loud anymore, wouldn't even laugh with his own lungs anymore. 

A few days of camping later, they were staying inside of a camper trailer rather than the typical campsite. After a night of frustrated tossing and turning, he waddled into the kitchen where no one was to be found but Gladio.

"Where's everyone else?" Prompto asked, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

"They went into town. Ignis finally got Noctis to put that stupid game down. Isn't that something?" Gladio said, yawning and digging into a bag of chips he’d picked up from the nearby convenience store. There was a beverage carrier case sitting on the counter, with one coffee to-go cup still resting in it, with a matching one in Gladio’s hand. "It was looking like Noctis was never going to quit playing that game."

"Yeah. Really something." Prompto muttered, tipping his first gulp of coffee into his mouth. It was lukewarm and bitter, and Prompto almost gagged on it. But he relished the awful taste, relished the way that it matched his mood. He wanted to magnify his misery. 

He abandoned Gladio, not wanting the company, and opting to go back to the bed and his backpack instead--rummage around for some clean clothes, take the time to take a shower in the tiny trailer bathroom and change. He wanted to stew, certainly, but post-battle sweat could only be stewed in for so long. He wasn't able to let the sweat settle on his skin and crust into his clothes like Noctis could. Prompto swore to himself, cursing himself for thinking about Noctis again. It was a constant problem. It was his number one problem, he thought as he yanked a clean pair of underwear out of his bag. He wished he could turn off his feelings for Noctis as easily as he could turn off his game. But no, he thought. His feelings for Noctis were as glued to the interior of his skull as the eyes of Noctis himself were glued to that stupid, stupid gaming system.

Prompto was about to leave for the shower when he noticed the gaming system in question sitting on Noctis's bed. The contents of his backpack were tossed carelessly across the covers, and the system was lying there in plain view. It was still open, Prompto noticed. It was even still running, despite the sound turned off. Noctis must've left it to charge, as the cord was connected and the orange light was blinking on the system. Prompto stared at it for a minute, and then fully realized the opportunity before him. Prompto snatched the DS, ripping it away from the wall, and crawled into his own bed. Before settling down completely, he grabbed his own DS cord, just to keep Noctis's system safe from running out of power. Prompto was going to have it on for a while.

Prompto had a lot to do.

\---------------------

Noctis and Ignis returned from their outing long after sunset. Prompto was tucked into a nest on the sofa and rolled over on his side, facing the musty fabric as he listened to the commercials playing on the TV. He was freshly showered, and his hands were empty, only picking at the skin around his fingernails. Prompto didn't even blink when he heard Noctis shriek in the other room. Prompto yawned instead as he heard Noctis yelling at Ignis, yelling about the game and everything that had happened. He heard every word Noctis screamed, and there were many things that Noctis was inclined to scream about. For one, all of the trees in his town had been chopped down.

"Every single tree!" Noctis yelled. "They're all gone! Stumps! Stumps! My town is full of stumps!"

Prompto couldn’t help but smirk a little bit.

“And who dug all of these holes?! You can't walk anywhere without being hindered by a hole. My--my road is gone! It's just holes now! My town--it's just holes!"

Noctis took a deep breath, his voice starting to tremble before he continued his rant.

"They were right there! You see that blank patch, Ignis? That was full of flowers! Full! They're all torn up now! My garden has been destroyed, and look at what happened to my house! My house was surrounded by flowers--by trees! And now, nothing! Nothing!" Noctis ranted. "And just look at all the weeds! How did they...weeds don't pop up that fast, weeds take time to...time...."

Noctis was silent for a while, but Prompto was holding his breath still. His greatest trick was about to be discovered. He wanted to hear Noctis's reaction. It came minutes later, or at least it seemed like minutes later. Prompto didn't realize he was holding his breath until he exhaled in time with Noctis's final outburst.

"It's fifty years in the future on the game clock now!" Noctis screamed, and a smirk finally appeared across Prompto's face. In-game time manipulation sure did have the potential to ruin everything, and all it had taken was a few taps of a stylus. Prompto couldn't be more pleased.

Gladio came into the living room now, staring at Prompto’s back on the couch as a peanut butter sandwich dripped from his hand.”What happened to Noctis?" he asked casually. Gladio never really cared if he aggravated Noctis’s temper tantrums.

Prompto didn’t respond, he just faked a sleepy mumble. He wasn’t even close to tired, though. Instead, he was wide awake as he relished in his success. Try and enjoy your game now, Noctis, thought Prompto with another bitter smirk.

\-------------------------

Noctis did not stop screaming until one in the morning that night. It took a great amount of effort for Ignis to calm him down, and he finally passed out shortly after Ignis forced him to drink a tall glass of water to help “calm his nerves.” His sleep was no result of natural exhaustion, though. Ignis had come up with the idea to sneak some ground-up sleeping pills into the glass, and while it was an inherently malicious idea, it worked. Noctis’s nerves were calmed, alright. Prompto didn’t move from the couch, eventually rolling over to stare up at the ceiling in the dim light that filtered through the grimy trailer windows. Muting the game from Noctis's life had almost been too easy.

Prompto did feel a little bad. He didn't feel terrible, of course. He wasn't racked with guilt, and there was only a small tugging of discomfort in his stomach as he heard Noctis's soft snoring. Noctis shouldn't have left his game out in the first place, he told himself. It was Noctis's fault. Anyone could have messed with the game--and that concept was what was saving Prompto from being immediately found out about what he had done. Noctis had been running down a list of possible intruders his raging, stopping and giving speeches about this gas attendant or that mechanic. He'd quote how they had given him the stinkeye, or how easy it would have been to break in when all of them carried a million and one keys on their belts. Prompto was surprised that Noctis had even been aware enough to notice such details. 

It hadn't been any stranger, though. Prompto was the one who had tapped away at Noctis's screen for three hours, meticulously chopping down every tree and running through all the fields of flowers, tearing them up from their imaginary roots. Once all of the flowers and trees were eliminated, Prompto took a shovel and started digging up all of the tiles that Noctis had laid down to make his town as extensive as possible. As if the now deforested, deflowered, potholed town wasn't ugly enough, Prompto had been sure to turn the clock on the DS several years forward, an action that would surely send the town into decay. Prompto checked that it had worked before he saved the game and set it down, and sure enough, the last thing he saw before he finished the game was a field of weeds. 

Prompto sniffed and sneered, rolling over in his bunk. Surely, he thought, surely Noctis could remedy it in no time. Knowing Noctis, he'd have his whole game fixed right back up in less than a week. He'd probably just be playing it more than ever, nose pressed to the screen as he planted a whole bunch of new flowers or something like that. Prompto rolled over again, angrily, wishing he had something to kick. He just now realized that he had made the entire situation worse for himself. Noctis was just going to spend more time playing it now. That was exactly what was going to happen, Prompto realized right before falling asleep.

\----------------------------

That was exactly what didn't happen.

Prompto didn't see Noctis very much over the next few days, but when he did see him Noctis was unwashed, bleary eyed, and silent. It was as if he had screamed his entire voice out during his initial outburst, and that he now had nothing left. He dragged himself through battles, slashing down enemies with a newfound bitterness, a cold rage that brought them down in seconds. Prompto and Gladio found themselves almost uncomfortable fighting beside them. 

Outside of battle, Noctis wasn't doing much of anything at all. He zipped himself up in the tent at all times now, and he definitely wasn’t playing the game in there. Prompto knew this because Ignis was now using his Noctis’s DS to casually play Pokemon during their evenings around the campfire. Ignis didn't have the addictive tendency to video games that Noctis did. Ignis managed to criticize mistakes they had made in battle that day, carry on side conversations, play the game, and discuss future plans at the same time. Ignis juggled his thoughts, and Noctis focused them in. That was how it always was, and right now Noctis was focused on stewing in his own misery.

Whenever Noctis got up from the tent or finished slaying an enemy, he walked as though he was in a daze. In the Regalia, he just gazed emptily at the scenery. Prompto thought Noctis's personality had been lost while playing the game, sucked into the screens. But now, some other force had snatched away Noctis's spirit. And really, Prompto didn't want to acknowledge that he was that force.

Every night, Prompto fell asleep in silence. He never heard Noctis snoring, which made Prompto wonder if Noctis was even sleeping. Prompto didn't want to think of Noctis potentially just lying beside him, staring dead-eyed at the dark interior of the tent like he did in all the daylight hours now. He never heard any music coming from next to him. He never heard anything, not even a rustle of the sleeping bag. Noctis was still and silent. It was getting to the point that Prompto was beginning to feel really, really bad. He had just wanted to break Noctis's addiction, to get Noctis back to spending time with everyone else (or, just Prompto) like he used to do. He had never wanted to break Noctis.

\-------------------------------

Noctis surfaced a week later. Prompto was alone in a kitchenette at another trailer, too late at night for anyone else to be around. He thought he was alone with a package of truck stop Twinkies (he couldn’t help but slip back into emotional eating) until he heard heavy breathing behind him.

"Gladio? Is that--Oh." Prompto turned around to see Noctis behind him, glaring.

"You." Noctis snarled. 

"Me what?" he asked, tentatively taking a bite of his snack to try and mock casual circumstances.

"You did it."

"Did wh--"

"You fucked up my game!" Noctis yelled, slamming a hand against the fridge. "It was you!"

"I--I--"

"I've been thinking about it for weeks--weeks! And it wasn't Ignis, wasn't Gladio, wasn't anyone else! It was only you who was even around that day. I checked, Prompto. I cross referenced with everyone and you're the only one who even knows how to play the game in the first place!" Noctis hissed, leaning in close to Prompto. "So are you happy? Did you enjoy your little prank?

"Noct, listen, I--" Prompto tried to say, setting his food down on the counter and putting his arms up in front of his chest.

"Don't you say anything! You ruined my life, Prompto!" Noctis yelled again.

"All I did was mess up your stupid game! That's not your entire fucking life, Noctis! That's stupid!" Prompto yelled back, pushing against Noctis.

"You don't understand how much that game meant to me!" Noctis said, shoving Prompto back.

"Obviously more than any of your friends!" Prompto snapped, shoving Noctis hard enough that the prince stumbled backwards on the tile floor.

"At least the game knows not to fuck with other people's things!"

"Noct--you--" Prompto spat incredulously. "How can you even fucking say that?"

"It's true!" Noctis screeched.

"Nothing about that game is better than anything in reality!"

"Everything is better! Reality fucking sucks, Prompto! Or have you forgotten all the shit that’s happened?”

"That game doesn't have Ignis in it! Or, or Gladio, or...or me, Noct! What about me?" he blurted.

"You're nothing but a liar and a jerk!" Noctis yelled, nose to nose with Prompto, spitting on his face. 

"A liar? A jerk? That's all I fucking am to you?" Prompto yelled back, pushing himself into Noctis’s face.

"What the fuck have you ever done otherwise? Huh? You're just a pest, a pest who doesn't do anything but fuck things up for other people!" Noctis spat.

Prompto stared at Noctis, speechless, then pushed Noctis out of the way and wrenched open the door of the camper trailer to storm out into the cold night air.

"Where are you going?" Noctis demanded, brusquely following after Prompto. Prompto didn't respond and kept walking away, hands shoved in his pockets and face tight with anger. "Prompto!" Noctis grabbed onto Prompto's arm, and Prompto wrenched it away. "Say something!"

"No! Fuck you!" Prompto retorted, halfheartedly hitting Noctis across the chest. "I'm nothing but a pest to you? Is that fucking it? I just...I just ruin things for you, mess them up? Fuck them up for you and everyone else, huh? You and everyone else! Great! That's just what I want to fucking hear!"

"Well, maybe you should have thought about that before you did what you did!" Noctis shook the hand that had touched Prompto away from his body, as if it were something dirty.

"Maybe you should have thought about someone besides yourself when you got so sucked into that game!" Prompto said, waving his arms angrily.

"It's the only thing I had!" Noctis raised his arms up in semi-defeat.

"You had us! You had me, Noct!" Prompto yelled, pointing a finger at his face.

"That's not it!"

"Then what is it, huh?"

"It--" Noctis began before Prompto interrupted.

'Let me guess, I just wasn't fucking good enough, huh? Never have been fucking good enough, just...just go fucking figure!" Prompto spat.  
"Prompto, you're just--"

"Just what? A stupid fucking loser who's in love with you like all those dumb girls we went to high school with? Well, fuck. Fuck you, Noctis. Sorry I messed up your dumb game, sorry I wanted some fucking attention from you. Sorry. I'm real, real fucking sorry." Prompto said, standing still and breathing heavily. "Sorry about my stupid fucking feelings." he finished before sighing angrily and pushing past Noctis to go sulk inside the 24-hour restaurant.

"Prompto--"

"Shut up, Noctis. I don't want to hear it."

\----------

Noctis hadn't spoken to Prompto for two weeks now. Ignis suggested the word ”overreacting" to apply to a lot of things, such as saying Prompto was “overreacting” to a beast that was very much an enormous threat. In this case, though, his label of "overreacting" on Noctis absolutely applied.

"He'll come around, don't worry." Ignis said one night, sitting down next to Prompto around the campfire. "When we were children at the castle, this same thing once happened. I accidentally wiped yhe file on one of his Nintendo 64 games, and well, the prince was so angry he nearly banished myself and my family from the royal service. King Regis had to intervene, and even then Noctis continued to rage.”

"How long did it take for him to get over it?" Prompto asked, sighing and looking at his barely touched sandwich on the table. He hadn't had much of an appetite in the past few weeks.

"About two months." 

Prompto sighed heavily. “And what did you have to do to get him not-pissed at you?"

"I fixed the file." Ignis said matter-of-factly. 

"You fixed the file? How'd you do that? Did you like, recover it in the...the hardware?"

Ignis laughed. “Of course not, that wasn’t possible back then. Rather, I just started sneaking on to the system after Noctis was asleep. I would marathon the game all night, fighting level after level. Noctis had been…perhaps two levels away from finishing? So, I simply played through the game until I got back to that point, then prompted the prince to try and play it once more.”

"Must've taken a while."

“It certainly did. I suffered many sleepless nights during that time,“ Ignis said, smiling slightly.

"So what, you just showed him you fixed it and then he wasn't mad anymore?" Prompto asked.

“Well…give or take.”

“Give or take?”

"Well, he was still very angry with me. But a week or so later, he called me down to come watch him beat the final boss. After that, things went back to normal." Ignis's phone then buzzed several times, signaling an abundance of messages coming through. "Now, what could this be…ah, it’s Noctis," Ignis muttered, sighing as he opened up the text messages he had just received.

"What is it?" Prompto asked eagerly. Noctis hadn't spoken to him, of course, so knowing that Noctis was still capable of communication was an exciting, if saddening fact.

Ignis raised an eyebrow at him, then shook his head. "See for yourself." he said, passing the phone to Prompto.

Prompto frowned as he looked down at the phone and scrolled through the messages.

"Ignis come talk to me im bored"

"i can hear you conversing with the traitor dont say youre busy come here now youre not to speak to him"

"can you bring back some food”

"Oh." Prompto said, sighing and handing the phone back to Ignis.

“I’m sorry, Prompto." Ignis said, giving him a sympathetic look. "It won't be that much longer. He'll get over it, he really will."

"I hope so." Prompto mumbled, tucking his knees up to his chest, folding himself up on the folding chair. 

Ignis gave Prompto a reassuring pat on the shoulder, then got up and walked towards Noctis’s tent, where Noctis would be of course lurking in misery as he had been for the past who knows how long now. Prompto had tried speaking to Noctis time after time, but Noctis wouldn't even look at him. Prompto had reached out to grab him one night, and Noctis had slapped his hand away. He had slapped Prompto hard enough for it to sting, something he had never done before, and Prompto had almost cried. Not from the pain, but the entire concept of Noctis hating him enough to hit him. There had to be a way to fix this mess. There just had to.

\---------

Noctis hadn't even played his DS in a significant amount of time. He had attempted to once, at Ignis's urging, but it had ended with Noctis shouting expletives about how ruined everything was, how there was no point. Since that outburst, the game system had been left somewhere deep in his backpack—out of sight, out of mind. The DS had become a major sore spot for Noctis. Whenever he saw it, he became extremely upset and lashed out at anyone unfortunate enough to be around him at the time. Lately, that sentiment had extended past just his DS system and gone to apply to video games as a whole. Gladio had attempted to play a fighting game one night at a hotel, and Noctis had walked into the room and glared at them before simply saying "no" and unplugging the console from the wall. Gladio, Ignis, and Prompto all agreed that Noctis had lost it at this point, but they also all recognized that getting through to him was impossible.

Prompto hadn't been sleeping, and when he did sleep he slept as far from Noctis as he could. Being anywhere Noctis was a terrible place to be at this point in their "relationship." It wasn't a relationship at all, he thought. He had effectively destroyed their friendship, not with his romantic semi-confession, but simply with the fact that he really, really fucked up Noctis's game. One night when he was tired of tossing and turning, he threw himself up in a huff and went to grab Noctis's dusty DS from Ignis’s backpack. He had taken it from Noctis simply to prevent Noctis from smashing it and forcing the group to invest in a new one.

He flipped it on, squinting as the harsh light of it filled up the dark tent. Ignis grunted in unconscious irritation, rolling over in the opposite direction. He clicked through the screens, eventually loading up the game. Prompto selected Noctis's character and went into the town. As he tried to walk away from his house, he was stopped by an angry animal who immediately started berating him for, apparently, having quit the game without saving. Prompto tried to remember the last time he had seen Noctis with the game, and he recalled that Noctis had angrily flipped off the switch in frustration. Prompto supposed that he was suffering the in-game consequence for Noctis's actions right now. Someone else to yell at Prompto. Exactly what he needed.

Once he had finished clicking through the excessive amounts of dialogue, Prompto was sure to check the in-game clock. It had been set back to the current date. Apparently, Noctis had forced his way out of ranting and raving long enough to fix that. Prompto moved Noctis's small character around the town, tugging up weed after pixelated weed. All of the trees were still stumps, and the flowers were as dry and desolate as he had left them. One of the NPC villagers rushed up to him, speaking in blubbering cartoon worry about how badly he had been missed in the town. Prompto clicked past all of that again, and once he was freed of the conversation he sighed (the real Prompto, not the game representation of him) and began to pick weeds out of the ground.

Prompto picked weed after weed after weed that night, pushing into the later hours of the morning before he started Ignis stir beside him. Quickly, he saved the game, then swapped out Noctis's Animal Crossing cartridge with another DS game he found lying about. He hid the system in his sleeping bag as Ignis woke up and prepared to start the day, but as Ignis left, Prompto quickly returned Noctis's DS to Ignis’s backpack, pocketing the game. He would be using it later.

Later, Prompto settled himself into bed with a tall energy drink and slid Noctis's game into his own DS. He finished pulling the weeds that he had neglected to remove in his gaming spurt last night, and then set to fishing. He needed money. Noctis's pockets were empty, and Prompto needed funds in order to purchase trees and flowers from Nook's store. So for night after night, after every exhausting day of battling, Prompto stayed up late into the night, Prompto slaved away catching fish and selling them to Nook, working until Prompto had amassed 300,000 Bells of in-game currency. He caught up on his sleep in the car, passed out and snoring so loudly Gladio would turn around and slap him on the knee.

Those funds were drained shortly, though, as Prompto set to buying tree after tree, flower seed after flower seed. He couldn't remember exactly how Noctis had organized the plants of his town previously, but Prompto did the best he could. He replanted the forest that had surrounded Noctis's house, he filled in every hole that he hadn't already fixed while pulling weeds, and he covered every tile of the game's terrain with a new bush of flowers. He made sure that he set up fruit trees, turning on the Wi-Fi and going online himself to get the rarer varieties. Prompto watered tree after tree, working for two weeks as he pushed and pushed to bring Noctis's town back up to scratch.

\------

One morning, Noctis woke up early and shoved his head into Prompto’s tent, searching for Gladio. Prompto quickly and hastily slammed the game shut, looking up at Noctis in terror. Noctis was frowning at him, lip hitched up in a sneer. "What are you doing now, Prompto, fucking up your own game?"

"I--yeah. Yeah, I'm...doing that." Prompto meant to comment in a more confrontational way, but he couldn't. He just couldn't dig it out of himself. 

"Stupid asshole." Noctis continued. "I worked so hard in that game, do you even know how long it took me? And there you are. You're just, just sitting there, laughing at your own game, and--"

"Oh, shut up Noctis. You know what, this is your game, dumbass,” Prompto snapped, too angry to keep his secret.

"Are you fucking kidding me? You're fucking it up even more? Give it back!" Noctis raged, running over and snatching the DS out of Prompto's hands. He pounded the buttons angrily, face scrunched up in rage. That expression fell away fast, though.

"This is my file?"

"Yeah. It's your game." Prompto huffed, crossing his arms over his chest. His gig was up, he supposed. Noctis would know what he had been doing now, the reason he had sacrificed sleep so much recently.

"It looks the same as it did before."

"Yeah. I--"

"You fixed it." Noctis said, looking at Prompto in awe. "You fixed my game."

"Yeah. Hope you're happy." Prompto mumbled, pushing past Noctis as he saw the light of the screen illuminating Noctis's face just like it used to. Noctis's old expression of happy gaming had returned to his face, and Prompto knew that Noctis would soon be out of reach once again. "I'm just going to go."

"Prompto!"

"What?" Prompto said, sighing and turning to look at Noctis again.

"Thanks. You didn't have to...to fix it like you did."

Prompto sighed again. "Yes I did, Noctis. You don't get it."

"But--"

"Have fun. Hope you're happy." Prompto said, wandering off to find Ignis, Gladio, even a chocobo to talk to and distract him from his problems. He didn't have Noctis's game to fill up his time properly anymore, and he sure as hell wasn't going to have Noctis again.

\------

That day, Noctis fought better than he had in weeks. Ignis and Gladio took notice and applauded him, Ignis looking questioningly at Prompto. Prompto avoided making eye contact. That night, Prompto was fast to shovel dinner into his mouth and get into his sleeping bag as quickly as he could. Feigning sleep was going to be the best way to handle Noctis.

It worked well enough. Prompto lay rigid in his bunk as he heard Noctis come in, followed by Noctis's game music starting up across from him in the tent. Prompto closed his eyes, trying to pretend he wasn’t where he was. It was as though the fight had never happened, he told himself. It was a good thing. Everything was supposedly okay now, or at least it should be. Noctis was happy again, at least. Prompto couldn't read Noctis well enough to know if there was any underlying misery in Noctis, but from what he could see, it didn't seem like it. Noctis was over it. Prompto wasn't.

Prompto was still huddled in his sleeping bag, alone, without even his previous halfhearted fantasies of Noctis to lull him to sleep. There was an old stain of cum crusted in one spot, and Prompto cringed when he felt it scrape underneath his fingers. It was disgusting, for one, but mostly upsetting that Prompto remembered the exact circumstances that stain had got there. About the night when Prompto had been whimpering into his hand, thinking desperately about what Noctis's hand would feel like around him, and then the actual Noctis had walked in and Prompto had finished in quick horror, so as not to get caught. It left a mess, of course.

Prompto didn't feel a stirring in his stomach thinking about Noctis anymore. Or rather, he did, but it was a feeling of nauseating stress, not want. He heard Noctis's game music stop all of a sudden, and Prompto frowned, trying to listen closer in confusion. He didn't think that Noctis would stop playing so early in the night. Before, Noctis had always tapped away at it until long after Prompto had already fallen asleep. Prompto listened, waiting for the music to pick up again, waiting to hear Noctis tapping at the DS. It was possible that Noctis had just put his headphones in.

Noctis wasn't playing the game anymore, though, and Prompto tasted vomit in the back of his throat once new noises introduced themselves to explain what Noctis was actually doing next to him. Prompto had heard Noctis jerk off plenty off times before, and recognized the shallow little breaths, the tiny little grunts, the shifting of the sleeping bag and the faint slapping of skin so close to him in the tent. Prompto instantly got hard as well, on instinct and gut reaction. He didn't want to be. He clenched his teeth together, trying to will himself to block out the sound. It didn't work, and Prompto was forced to lie there by Noctis in patient misery until he finished with a gasp. Prompto didn't touch himself, he just felt his dick slowly, sadly deflate inside of his pajama pants. He missed Noctis so much. He wanted Noctis so badly. He couldn’t stay aroused when he was so miserable.

A few minutes, or maybe hours later, Prompto heard Noctis switch into snoring. He rolled onto his back, staring wistfully at Noctis until he eventually fell asleep. He didn't dream, and when morning rolled around Prompto tried to stay in the tent as long as he could. It didn't work. The sun came too early, and it was time for Prompto to deal with yet another day.

\----

Once they finished cracking open another tomb and scarfing down a new recipe of Ignis’s, Prompto tried to skulk off to sleep. It didn't work, though. For one, it was hotel night. For two, Noctis snagged Prompto before he could run off, blabbering on and on about how it was a holiday inside of the Animal Crossing world, how they should play together. Noctis explained that Ignis and Gladio had rented their own hotel room, so they could have their own gaming party, just the two of them. Prompto agreed, not that he really had any room to argue inside of Noctis's enthusiasm. 

When they got to the room, Prompto tried to stall inside of the shower as long as possible. Maybe, he thought, Noctis would become tired in that time, or give up and decide to turn in early. That wasn't the case, and a clean, pajama-clad Prompto stepped out of the bathroom to find Noctis sitting on the bed and still wearing his dirty clothes from earlier. Of course, Noctis had his DS in his hands already, and was engrossed as usual.

"Hey Prompto, get your DS out fast okay?”

Prompto rolled his eyes, but still obeyed Noctis as he always did. He sighed as the opening screen of his DS loaded, clicking on Animal Crossing and waited for it to load with a sigh. 

"It's the firework festival. It's a huge deal, and there's a lot of stuff you can grab. See?" Noctis said, running his character over to Prompto's character once Prompto arrived in Noctis's town.

"Yeah, I see."

"Look, Prompto! Isabelle came out to visit everyone! Do you see?"

"Uh-huh."

"Here, help me gather things, ok? We have to collect the special furniture for this holiday."

"We do?"

"Of course we do."

For two hours, Prompto dutifully tagged alongside Noctis as Noctis trotted all over the town, pestering villager after villager. Occasionally, Noctis's character would shoot cheerful emoticon faces at Prompto's. Prompto didn't respond with anything. He didn't know how to make his character do that, but he also didn't particularly feel like it. Noctis's character smiled at him, laughed at him, and one time Noctis's character fell over at Prompto in hearts. He supposed it was the "lovesick" emotion. Prompto just felt sick. 

Once they finished the "holiday quest" Prompto made an effort to yawn very widely and very loudly. "I think I'm kind of tired. I'm just gonna--"

"No, don't!" Noctis immediately interjected, looking up from his game for the first time in over half an hour. "Keep playing!"

"Is there really that much left to do?"

"Well, yeah! There's always stuff to do in Animal Crossing!" he said enthusiastically.

"Noct, I don't think so...I'm really tired..." Prompto mumbled, pushing the start button.

"Are you sure you want to save?" his screen read. Prompto was about to click "yes," but Noctis grabbed his hand. 

"Prompto, c'mon. We haven't hung out at all lately."

"Yeah, because you've been pissed off and ignoring everyone." Prompto said bitterly.

"That was just a little while! I'm okay now!" Noctis pleaded.

"I really don't think so." Prompto pushed the "yes" on his game, and his game switched over to the saving screen, playing a short melody before the game successfully saved and Prompto was returned to the title screen. He switched off the DS, setting it down on the nightstand between the two beds in the room. "I'm gonna sleep now." he mumbled, stepping over to crawl into the opposite bed from Noctis. He wasn't that tired. He could sleep, though. He knew he could sleep.

"Prompto, please." Noctis continued to beg. Prompto heard the bed creak as Noctis got off of it, and then seized up as he felt Noctis lie down beside him in his own bed. "C'mon, Prompto." Noctis said, hugging Prompto from behind and shaking him gently in his arms. "It's only two in the morning."

"Exactly. S'two in the morning." Prompto tried to ignore how nice Noctis felt positioned behind him like this, how aware he was of Noctis's crotch spooned into his backside.

"If you stay up we can do other stuff, too."

"I don't want to do anything else."

"We can touch each other if you want." Noctis said quietly, and Prompto was immediately more aware of how Noctis's mouth was close and hot on the skin of his neck. 

"What?" Prompto sputtered, shoving Noctis off of him and scooting up against the headboard of the bed.

"You like me, right? You said that the other day." Noctis said, crawling over Prompto to position himself between his legs. "Here, c'mon, we can do stuff and then that'll wake you up and we can get back to the game." he said, leaning over and trying to kiss Prompto.

"N-no!" Prompto said, hastily pushing Noctis away. "What the hell are you doing?"

"I thought you wanted to do that stuff." Noctis said, frowning.

"Not—I—Jesus fucking Christ, Noct, you really don't fucking get it. Holy shit, you don't get it." Prompto said, pushing Noctis even farther away from him and sliding off the bed onto the floor to reach for his shoes, quickly tying them on their feet.

"What are you--"

"I'm going into, into Gladio and Ignis’s room, or something--I'm not, not fucking..."

"What? Prompto, what's wrong?"

Prompto finished pulling the knot tight on his shoe, glowering at Noctis. "People don't fucking work that way. You can't just, just fucking--trade shit like that to get people to play games with you. T-this, this right here, this isn't one of your fucking games. And you don't get that." Prompto grabbed his backpack off the floor, then his reeking pile of clothes off the end of the bed. "I'm fucking out, I'm not staying around in here."

"But--"

"No, no fuck you, Noctis. I'm out." Prompto said, stomping out of the hotel room and slamming the door shut behind him.

 

\---------

Prompto spent an uncomfortable night on the floor of Ignis and Gladio's hotel room, and an even more uncomfortable morning at breakfast. He and Noctis were both silent, and while everyone was aware that something had happened, no one was interested in divulging what had actually happened. The fights returned to how they had been during Noctis's period of depression over losing his town, except now it was Prompto bringing them all down. Noctis was still enthusiastic enough, which just made Prompto even more miserable. At least Noctis had the sense to not pursue Prompto anymore.

Eventually, Noctis confronted Prompto. It wasn't over anything monumental, it was barely even a confrontation as much as it was Noctis taking care of business.

"Prompto--" 

"What, what do you want, Noctis?" Prompto huffed, turning around to face him with a grimace.

"Well, you just...forgot your game the other day. Your DS. You left it in the hotel room, I, uh, I figured you might want it back."

Prompto snatched the system out of Noctis's hands, wordlessly, and was about to stomp off when Noctis interrupted again.

"Prompto! Wait, I--"

"What, Noctis, what is it?"

"Well...look, I wanted to say...just because you and I aren't on the best um..."

"The best terms? No, I wouldn't say we are." Prompto snapped.

"Don't let that stop you from playing the game though, okay? You should still play." Noctis said, looking up at Prompto a little pleadingly. Prompto stared at him, then rolled his eyes and made to actually stomp out of the room.

He took Noctis's comment to heart eventually. Prompto picked the game up perhaps a week later, after another week of silence between him and Noctis had passed. It made him cringe when he first picked it up, but he had been bored. He made an effort to get through the introductory scenes, and finally loaded his player character outside of his house. He noticed that his mailbox in the game was flashing, and opened it up. There were several letters from Noctis inside of it. Prompto frowned, almost throwing his DS across the room, but the urge evaporated from his hands and he ignored the letters as he turned to pull weeds out of his town instead.

It could be worse, he thought. At least the game itself was mind numbing to remove Noctis from his thoughts. He finished picking all of the weeds, and then made his way down the river of the game fishing. Prompto still needed to pay off his mortgage and make improvements to his house, the greatest goal in the game. Fishing was the best way for one to make the money to do so. Prompto fished all up and down the river, and periodically sold the fish he caught to Tom Nook, the shopkeeper in the game. Eventually, he made his way down to the beach, where he started picking up seashells to shell—er, sell. Prompto was now living the old nursery rhyme.

Amidst the seashells, Prompto noticed something that he had not seen in the game before. It was a message in a bottle, sitting in the pixelated sand. Prompto picked it up, opening the message out of curiosity.

im really really sorry :(

\--Noctis

Prompto angrily deleted the message, removing it from his inventory. He stomped his character down the beach some more, picking up several more bottled messages along the way. 

i didnt mean to make you so upset :(

\--Noctis

 

will you please talk to me? :(

\--Noctis

 

we can pretend it never happened i just dont want you to be mad anymore :(

\--Noctis

Prompto huffed, deleting message after message, and blazed his way over to Tom Nook to quickly sell his items and then log out of the game. Curiosity got the best of him, though, and he opened up his mailbox again before saving and quitting the game. There were six letters from Noctis, as he had seen before, and they were all written on bright, colorful stationery. It did not suit Prompto's mood very well to look at.

Prompto. i didnt mean to offend you when the stuff in the hotel room happened. i thought it was something u wanted so thats why i brought it up. and sex makes people stay awake and i wanted to play the game with u more.

you said that thing when we fought before i thought that meant that maybe u seriously wanted to do stuff. Ignis said u liked me and he can normally tell stuff like that really well bc he has good instincts.

Prompto cringed. He had tried to be subtle for a long, long time. It appeared that his efforts had not succeeded. 

anyway i wasnt trying to force u or offend u or anything and i didnt know a good way to mention it before. ive been putting it off for a really long time but since you said that thing before i thought it would be a good time to try.

—Noctis

i like u too but if you dont like me anymore its ok and its not a big deal. i like u better than luna lol. But srsly

—Noctis

Prompto please stop ignoring me.

—Noctis

i feel really bad ok and we dont have to talk about it but please just be my friend again. :(  
\--Noctis

Prompto sighed, switching his DS off without saving and flopping back on his bunk. He was certainly in the shit now. 

\------

Late the following night, Prompto returned to his space in the tent with Noctis to hear the Animal Crossing music playing as usual. Quietly, Prompto switched on his own game. After clicking through Resetti's yelling, the consequence of his failure to save earlier, he made his way over to the town gate, where he left his town and traveled over to Noctis's village. Noctis had been shaking his legs and rustling his sleeping bag loudly for some time now, a nervous habit the prince had. Once the game announced that Prompto had arrived in Noctis's town, he heard the rustling stop. Things were serious now.

Prompto ran through the town, searching for Noctis, and eventually found him.. Their two characters stared at each other awkwardly for a minute, swinging their arms aimlessly, before Noctis's character finally spoke.

Prompto?

hey.

did u get my letters?

yeah.

oh.

i read them.

what do u think?

idk.

oh.

Prompto stared at the screen, holding his breath and waiting for Noctis to say something else. He didn't.

"Prompto?" he heard from the other side of the tent, very quietly. Prompto exhaled, biting his lip hard before turning his to Noctis. Noctis looked hesitant, nervous.

"Yeah?" he said.

"Can I talk to you in person?"

"Yeah. Let me save." Prompto said, saving and switching his game off and setting it next to him on the ground. "Okay. Are you--"

Noctis had already scooted up closer to Prompto. ”Are you sure you’re okay to talk?“

“I…yeah, yeah, it’s fine.” Prompto said, trying to act as casual as he could

Noctis blinked at him in surprise, then crawled over to lie beside Prompto on the sleeping bag, not wanting to be directly on the ground. Noctis initially kept his arms tight at his sides, but Prompto sighed and wrapped his arms around Noctis's waist, drawing him in closer. Prompto worried he was being too forward, but he felt a little tension lift as Noctis then put his own arms around Prompto. Both of them were hesitant to move. Neither of them spoke initially.

"We're dumbasses." Prompto muttered into the slightly damp fabric of Noctis's shirt. He stunk of sweat, the most familiar stench that Prompto knew.

"I shouldn't have come on to you like that. In the hotel room." Noctis said in reply.

"I thought you were just...trying to, I dunno, pacify me or something. That you just wanted to get me off so I'd do what you want."

'That wasn't it."

"You never do anything but play games, so--"

"Because it got my mind off of you." Noctis mumbled, putting one of his hands in Prompto's hair. “It’s…weird, being…being into someone else when I’m supposed to get married or whatever. And…and it’s weird being a prince and dealing with it, and…yknow, when we were in high school, it was…it was weird back then, too. I dunno. I…I tried to ignore it I guess. Cause yknow, stuff like that…a prince can’t do that stuff. 

 

Prompto’s stomach turned over nervously, his face tucked in the sweaty crook of Noctis's neck. He had never expected to hear words like this come from Noctis, he had fantasized about it, sure, but never thought it would happen.

“I…I’ve always felt the same, Noct. I just…it’s hard for me, too. I mean, I didn’t think I could ever…have anything with you either, I guess. But these weeks, god, arguing with you has been worse than dealing with…wanting you.” Prompto finished softly. “It’s so tiring.”

“It wears you out. I know. Me too." Noctis said, giving Prompto a squeeze.

"You wanna just sleep?" Prompto asked him, trying to lead into a safe situation. Confessing their feelings was overwhelming enough, and he felt himself beginning to panic over the reality that they were alone, in a tent, and…so close to each other.

"Yeah. We can deal with all of this in the morning. But...but, um..." Noctis was hesitating, as if there were words caught in his throat.

"Yeah?"

"Can I kiss you? This is the part where we kiss each other, right?"

"Yeah. Yeah, this is the part where we kiss each other." Prompto murmured, the hairs on the back of his neck prickling as his stomach turned over again with anticipation..

Noctis tipped his chin up, and their noses smashed together, their teeth clacked and slid against each other, and their mouths were sloppy with misguided drool in seconds. Prompto made a stupid little whimper, and Noctis sort of snorted into his mouth by means of reply. Their tongues slid together awkwardly, their hands starting to move over each other and grab hot skin, their crotches seeking each other out as they heatedly, desperately sought release. Prompto, embarrassingly enough, hadn’t done anything like this before, but by the way Noctis was acting it seemed like the prince was coming from the same place. Noctis grabbed at Prompto’s ass and Prompto gasped out, pushing his hips harder against Noctis as he ground against him, his hands under Noctis’s shirt and running over Noctis’s slick chest.

They both came in their pants, one after each other, and Prompto couldn’t even cringe at how gross it would be in the morning. He was too happy, there were too many thoughts running through his head as he tried to process what just happened, as he tried to process that Noctis, the boy he’d lusted after for years, was cuddled up against him after they had just made each other come. Prompto never could’ve imagined it, but he was too tired from the day’s previous events to do anything but pass out.

There would be time after that for them to discuss all of the details and all of the feelings that they had built up for each other of the years. There would be time for frantic, messy sex, for Prompto to shove his hands under Noctis's pajama pants (the next morning), for Noctis to open his mouth for Prompto’s cock (two days later, for Noctis to spread Prompto's legs apart and sink deep into him (three hotel nights later). Finally, they had all the time in the world (well, time when they weren’t cutting down daemons) to roll around in tents and motel beds finally doing everything they’d wanted to for so long.

At the moment, though, now that Noctis and Prompto had finally confessed, finally bridged the gap between them, finally felt each other’s heavy breaths as they came against each other, there was only time for sleep. As the characters in their own respective games would slide horizontally into their small cots, Prompto and Noctis "saved their own games" for the night as well. The difference, though, was that while their characters inside of Animal Crossing could only ever sleep alone, Prompto and Noctis would share their beds from here on out—technically, a sleeping bag most of the time, but they were finally close enough that technicalities didn’t matter anymore. 

The space they shared was small and it was cramped, of course. They were uncomfortable and dealing with circumstances that would make anyone want to escape in a game, that would make anyone want to go running towards another world where things were easier. But as hard as things were, it was finally clear that neither Noctis nor Prompto would want to waste time playing any game now that they finally had each other to enjoy reality with.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
